Recently I got the opportunity to chat with Jon Middleton of Victoria 3-piece Jon and Roy. Read on to see that we talked about their new album coming in the new year, their touring schedule, and the story behind the band.
How did Jon and Roy become Jon and Roy?
Well, we met in Victoria and just started playing music together, and over the years we’ve gone from playing in little pubs and bigger pubs, and now we’re trying to make a bigger push, you know? We’re playing bigger places now and being a little more serious about our music. And it’s kind of just naturally evolved from fun jams to more of a serious thing.
How would describe your sound? In one word, how would you describe Jon and Roy?
One word? Hmm.. [50 second thought pause] In one word.. I would describe our music as… [another 20 second pause] I don’t know man, it’s hard you know? We often, like, discover our music as folk, reggae kind of stuff, but there’s so many other elements going on. Like I’m a lover of music in general, and in that, I can incorporate all sorts of elements of different music like hip-hop, reggae, and folk, and rock, and African music all sorts of sounds. And that’s all just come out in the music we make and it’s so hard to really pinpoint. And that’s always the problem when trying to, like, describe our music, you know?
Where do you guys usually find your inspiration? How do you make your music?
Umm, I don’t know, it comes from different places sometimes. We’ll just be playing, having a little jam sesh in Victoria, and we just go there and sometimes we’ll just be in a certain mind state and something will just come out that we’ll wind up keeping. We’re inspired by different music for sure and playing music.
When you go on tour, who comes with?
Well, basically we’re a three piece now. We’ve got myself, Roy, an this other guy Ryan Tonelli who plays bass, and has been doing this for about a year. And sometimes we bring this guy that plays mandolin, his name’s Dougal. And, yeah, other than that, we’ll sometimes bring a rodie once in a while, his name’s Pat. We’re pretty low-key on that.
What do you listen to?
I listen to all sorts of music. It’s hard to say, I like all artists. Mostly Bob Dylan and Bob Marley… The two Bobs. The two Bobs usually come back to me. Those two always have meaning and I can return to those two. All the other music I listen to like hip hop, and a lot of African music. So, yeah a lot of select artists I can come back and listen to. But, yeah, the two Bobs.
So, you’re to Rifflandia this year; what are your plans after that?
You mean, like, right after? [More like touring-wise.] Well, we plan on touring Canada again at the end of November. So, we’re going across to, I think, Thunder Bay. And then we’re planning on going to the States. So those are the pretty much the two plans that are kind of in stone, but we’re doing a big show in Victoria on December 12th at the Alix Gooldan Theater. We played it last year, and there was no Christmas theme or anything, it was just a good chance for people to come and it was really great, so we’re doing that this year. Yeah, other than that, we’ve got a new album that’s going to be done in the new year.
A new album? Any new sounds coming out with this new album?
Well, it’s kind of similar music obviously, but it’s a bit more flushed out. We got a lot more time in the studio this time so it let us kind of think about things a but more and what we want to, actually, add to it.
I want to thank Jon Middleton for setting aside the time for me to chat him up.
